Defense Mechanism
Sigmund Freud describes how the ego uses a range of mechanism to handle the conflict between the id, the ego and the super ego. His daughter Anna Freud introduced the principle of inner mechanism that defends the ego in her book ‘The Ego and the mechanism of defense, written in the year 1936.’

Defense Mechanism is a strategy developed by the ego to protect against anxiety. Defense Mechanism are thought that protect or safeguard the mind against Feelings and thoughts that are too difficult for the conscious mind to cope with for example if a person is faced with a particularly unpleasant task, his mind may chose to forget the responsibility in order to avoid the unpleasant assignment.

• Denial – Protecting oneself from unpleasant reality by refusing to perceive or face it.
• Displacement – Diverting emotional feelings from their original source to a substitute target.
• Repression – Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious.
• Rationalization – Creating false but credible justifications.
• Sublimation – Redirecting ‘wrong’ urges into socially acceptable action.
• Reaction Formation – Behaving in a way that exactly the opposite of one’ true feelings.